The UN Global Compact has launched its first-ever Sustainable Procurement Implementation Framework – a practical resource to help organisations move sustainability from a commitment on paper to something embedded in how procurement actually operates, day to day. It launched at the High-Level Forum on Sustainable Procurement during the UN General Assembly, and it answers a question many of us have: not why does sustainable procurement matter, but how do we actually make it happen?
Shaped by This Community
Through our collaboration with the UN Global Compact’s Coalition for Sustainable Procurement, SPP helped bring the voice of procurement practitioners into the development of the Framework.
That’s important because this isn’t simply a framework written for procurement. It is a framework shaped with input from procurement practitioners themselves. Drawing on insights and experiences from across our global community, SPP helped ensure the realities of implementation were reflected throughout its development.
For a movement founded on the belief that procurement should help shape the sustainability agenda, this is an incredible milestone.
As SPP Co-Founder Thomas Udesen put it:
“One of the milestones we set for ourselves was to see the voice of Procurement represented in the world’s most important sustainability conversations. Not creating a separate discussion, but contributing where real change was already being shaped. Today, that ambition has become reality.”
What We Heard in New York
Lauren Richardson (SPP Advisor, former CPO of Colgate-Palmolive) and Florian Vollmer (SPP Transformation Panel Member, Head of Procurement Sustainability and Risk Management at Bayer) represented our community at the launch, and both came away with the same impression: the conversation has shifted. Procurement wasn’t spoken about as a supporting function, it was described as a genuine driver of economic transformation and one of the strongest levers of influence across a business. Resilience and sustainability were treated as the same conversation, not two separate ones.
And notably, nobody in the room was still debating whether sustainable procurement matters. The energy was all forward-looking – how do we build capability, move faster, and learn from each other. The Framework was referred to as “a common starting point,” which feels like exactly the right way to think about it.
Closing the Gap Between Ambition and Action
Because here’s the honest truth: most procurement professionals already know why this work matters. Where things usually stall is knowing where to begin, what good practice actually looks like, and how to turn intentions into something real. That’s the gap this Framework is built to close.
As Kathrin Decker, Deputy Director at SPP, put it:
“We’ve spent years building knowledge, sharing experiences and learning from one another as a community. What’s exciting about the Framework is that it helps turn that collective knowledge into action. No excuses left: it’s time to get it done!
Now, It’s Up to Us
As Sanda Ojiambo, CEO and Executive Director of the UN Global Compact, said at the launch:
“Our ambition is to make sustainable procurement the global norm and to give companies a practical pathway for turning that ambition into action.”
That pathway now exists. So this is genuinely an invitation, not just an announcement: read the Framework, test it against your own reality, apply what’s useful, and tell us what you learn along the way – what worked, what didn’t, where you got stuck.
This milestone won’t be defined by the launch. It’ll be defined by what this community does with it next.
